Night School at Montessori

[once again I forgot my camera, and had to rely on the camera phone...]

Because pre-schoolers and even kindergarteners can't always explain what they did at school, once a year at Montessori they hold "night school" where the children can show their parents what they do every day. Elijah has been very excited about this for several days, but once he found out that Leah was getting a babysitter, he no longer wanted to go... However, if he didn't go to night school, I wouldn't have PAID for a babysitter. I think that logic was lost on him though. Hannah didn't think there would be anything worth showing me since everything is WAY TOO EASY for her these days.

I started off with Elijah, and he and his classmates showed off their knowledge of the map of South America. They know more countries than I do! Elijah picked Argentina and Peru to place on the map. When we were dismissed from circle time, Elijah demonstrated an odd/even number work.






At this point, the administrator came in to tell me that Hannah was ready for me to see her work before she put it away.


Hmmm... she's not even close to being done. Hannah and Daniela were simply guessing which number to put next... This is the 6 chain, and it's really ingenious. Each section has 6 beads, and the students put the correct number marker at the end of each section, to teach counting by 6's and multiplication. Then every 6th section (6 squared) the tag is a bit fatter and they place a 6x6 bead square there as well. At the end of the chain they've reached 6x6x6 and they put down a 6x6x6 bead cube. Of course, Miss-I'm-Ready-For-First-Grade-Because-Kindergarten-is-Boring-and-Easy, needed LOTS of help doing this. She's just not a number person and has a hard time counting above 30. With my help, she was able to complete it, and Daniela was impressed...




Back to poor Elijah who got left alone before his 1/2 of night school was done... He practically finished his work while I quickly visited Hannah (I helped her with the counting AFTER this).


Hannah and Walker (in pirate face paint, no less) show off how many books they've read this school year. Now THIS is where Hannah excels :) I think we'll be working on counting.

After it was over, Elijah didn't want to leave... He wanted to finish another work that he'd started. It was after 7:30 and the poor teachers hadn't even been home yet...

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Walker's mom just sent the following pics to me, so I thought I'd add them because they are so cute!